CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 549 km round trip from Kōya - roughly 9 h 12 in the saddle. On the way it passes Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi, Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K, Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja and Nisanzai Kofun. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 850 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Getting to Kōyasan feels like a pilgrimage even on a motorcycle. The roads climb out of the Kinokawa valley through dense cedar forest, switchback after switchback, until you emerge onto a high basin at around eight hundred metres where a whole town of temples has grown up. The monk Kūkai, known after his death as Kōbō Daishi, founded the monastery here in the early ninth century as the centre of Shingon Buddhism, and Kongōbu-ji is the head temple of the sect. Its halls, painted sliding doors and the large rock garden are worth an unhurried visit, and the whole mountain is part of the UNESCO listing of the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.
Read the complete Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji is where the day begins. Next is Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi.
The Ômine Okugakemichi is not a road at all, at least not one you can ride. It is a mountain trail that runs for about a hundred kilometres along the spine of the Ômine range in the Kii peninsula, linking Yoshino in the north with Kumano in the south, over peaks, ridges and rock faces. For more than a thousand years, yamabushi, the mountain ascetics of the Shugendo tradition, have walked it as a spiritual practice, combining Buddhist, Shinto and older mountain beliefs, with rituals at sacred rocks, waterfalls and cliffs along the way. It is part of the UNESCO-listed Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range, inscribed in 2004.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi comes up about 106 km into the recorded legs. Next is Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K.
Mount Kōya is one of Japan's great sacred places, a high basin in the mountains of northern Wakayama where the monk Kūkai founded a monastic centre for Shingon Buddhism in the early ninth century. Today it is a town of over a hundred temples, many of which take in overnight guests, set among towering cedars. South of the summit plateau, deep in the forested ridges, run the old pilgrim trails that link Kōya with the Kumano shrines, part of the network inscribed by UNESCO as the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 175 km into the recorded legs you reach Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K. Next is Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja.
In the foothills below Mount Kōya, in the village of Kudoyama, stands the Niukanshōfu shrine, dedicated to the deities who protect the sacred mountain. In the ninth century, the monk Kūkai, known after his death as Kōbō Daishi, founded a monastery on the plateau of Kōyasan as the centre of Shingon Buddhism, and he established an administrative office here, at the foot of the mountain, to manage the supply of the monastery. Nearby, the temple of Jison-in is associated with Kūkai's mother, who according to tradition lived here because women were not allowed on the mountain, and her son came down to visit her. The shrine and temple mark the start of the Chōishi-michi, the pilgrim path to Kōyasan, marked every 109 metres by stone posts, which climbs about twenty kilometres to the monastery. The sites are part of the UNESCO listing of the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.
Read the complete Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja, about halfway. Next is Nisanzai Kofun.
In the middle of the sprawling city of Sakai, south of Osaka, a large keyhole-shaped mound rises above a ring of moats, covered in dense forest and surrounded by houses, roads and shops. This is the Nisanzai Kofun, a monumental tomb built in the fifth century for a member of the ruling elite of early Japan. It is one of the largest of the Mozu-Furuichi Kofun Group, a collection of burial mounds listed by UNESCO in 2019, which includes the enormous Daisen Kofun, traditionally attributed to the emperor Nintoku and one of the largest tombs in the world by area.
Read the complete Nisanzai Kofun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nisanzai Kofun sits at 150 km, about halfway. Next is back through Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja comes up about 322 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 374 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K. Next is back through Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi, late in the day. Next is Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 549 km.
Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji → Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi is 106 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi → Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K → Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja → Nisanzai Kofun is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Nisanzai Kofun → back through Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kôyasan - Niukanshôfu-jinja → back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Sankeimichi - K → back through Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pilgrimage Routes - Ômine Okugakemichi → Kôyasan - Kongôbu-ji is 106 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.